Editor’s Note: this month is National Women’s Month and starting March 8th, International Women’s Day, we are featuring writers who have shared with us their thoughts on reading romance. Today we’ve asked Dear Author’s Jane how National Women’s Month pertains to romance novels. Click here for more blog posts on the subject!

By Jane Litte, blogger for Dear Author

International Women’s Day was started in 1911 to celebrate and agitate for women’s equality.  Nearly 100 years later, women have achieved great freedoms: the right to vote, the right to own property, and earn a living wage.  It seems that the next great challenge, beyond getting the right to be paid the same for the same work, is the right to own our sexuality.

I often think that romance books are criticized for being about sex because there is something challenging about a woman as a fully cognizant sexual being.  Take, for example, sex and violence. 

In many mystery and suspense books, there is very graphic violence, usually toward women.  Women are captured in groups and have snakes sent up their legs to violate them.  In Brett Eason Ellis’ book, American Psycho, the protagonist sends a rat through a prostitute’s body and chases after her with a chain saw.  In Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series, Lena Adams is violently raped more than once and in more than one book.

Mysteries and suspense books are considered real literature, worthy of reviews in major newspapers and considered for major awards.   There is very little discussion about the level of violence in these books or the abuse of women that seem to be a central theme and what the readers of those books are seeking.

Yet, women that read books that praise a woman seeking out and having orgasms, seeking pleasure, deriving pleasure are held up for mockery and disdain.  Some of the more erotic romances are called one handed reads, presuming that the stories are a) read for titillation and b) that there might be something wrong with point a.

What can be wrong with a woman reading about other women getting pleasure, both physically and emotionally?  Why is that perverse or dangerous?

I know Victoria Dahl, author of Talk Me Down, gets a lot of flack for writing her “dirty” books but I enjoy the sex positive attitudes of her lead characters.

 

In the 19th Century, women were cautioned not to read, particularly pulp fiction because they were said to be susceptible to the power of fiction.  Some argue that romance readers will generate unrealistic expectations of life, relationships, or love.

I think that if there was more equality in the sexes about sexuality, romance novels would appear to be less dangerous, less provocative.

Editor’s Note: For the next three days we’re featuring the lovely bloggers who took part in creating our Blogger eBook Bundles! We kick off the series with Jane from Dear Author, whose bundle is Blogger Bundle Volume I: Dear Author Selects Unusual Heroines.

by Jane Litte, blogger for Dear Author.

I can’t express how thrilled Dear Author was to be asked to put together a list of backlist titles to be re-released in digital format. We thought long and hard about the bundle and what we could have included. We love the unusual at Dear Author and in reviewing our own memories, talking with other readers, and looking over the Harlequin backlist, we came up with the following titles:

Arm Candy by Jo Leigh
Just Kiss Me by Kathleen O’Reilly
Obsession by Kay David
Code of Honor by Kathryn Shay

Each book features a strong heroine but a different one: Banker, lawyer, marketing maven, firewoman. They are women in different places in their lives: looking for a new love, recovering from a lost one. They are women going after what they want and women pursued. In sum, just like all of us.

Arm Candy and Just Kiss Me are more lighthearted books but they all have some sly humor in them. Just check out the back cover copy from Arm Candy:

HOW TO IMPRESS A WOMAN
Wine her and dine her. Listen to her. Laugh with her. Buy her flowers. Go shopping with her. Don’t stop reminding her she is beautiful. Console her when she is down. Rejoice with her when she is up. Read romantic poetry to her. Tell her you love her.

HOW TO IMPRESS A MAN
Arrive naked. Bring beer

In Just Kiss Me, Joe writes notes to Amanda featuring a checklist wherein the last two items Amanda is to check off is how angry she is with Joe:

__ Don’t like O.J., please change to apple juice
__ Need coffee
__ Milk?
__ Thinking that Joe might be an okay guy
__ Thinking that Joe is an ass

See you soon,

Joe

I think another thing that all these authors share is the keen sense of observation and the ability to convey, in brief, a lot of meaning. From Kay David’s Obsession:

Tonight she wore a sleeveless black dress, straight and severe with a scarf tucked into the neckline. She’d probably read in a magazine somewhere that the square of silk would make the dress into a cocktail outfit. She’d been wrong to think so. It still looked like a banker’s dress. No nonsense. Businesslike. Boring.

Emma, in Obsession, was a banker and frankly, she wanted to convey that message of staid, businesslike and boring because it was such a reversal from the lowest point in her life when she was addicted to alcohol and pills, lost her family, and her way. The last two books in the bundle are different in tone than the first two. Arm Candy and Just Kiss Me are more flirtatious. Obssession and Code of Honor are more serious. They both deal with loss. Chelsea, the firewoman, has to struggle with a past relationship gone bad and the rising forbidden attraction to her station lieutenant all the while proving her worth as a female firefighter in a job supposedly meant for men.

In all, we chose these books because the writing is good and the stories of romance, while varied, are heartening. We think that they represent the diversity and talent in the genre. We hope you enjoy these stories as much as we do.